Potty dream

A few nights ago – actually, during a Saturday morning lie-in – I had a couple of memorable but goofy dreams. The kind of dreams I have to call my mother about so she can laugh at them. And she did laugh when I called her.

In the first dream, I had a new baby brother and I was tasked with changing its diaper. Of course, being a dream task, this turned out to be frustrating and fraught with chaotic impediments, like the baby's clothing changing from moment to moment all by itself. While this was going on, I recall telling the baby not to mess his life up like his older brothers. (If Ryan and Jake are reading this, I'm sure I was including myself in that comment, so give me a break.) Also, at some point, I dropped baby on the floor, but he didn't seem to take any serious harm from it. Oh, and by the way, the baby could talk like a grown-up, which didn't totally freak me out in the moment. I suppose that's the weirdest bit of all.

I must have gotten up to pee, or turned over in bed, or something because some time passed and I found myself having a completely separate dream and it went like this: I was walking around a small town, possibly a bit like the last town I lived in before where I live now, and it was late evening so nothing was open. The trouble was, I really had to pee. So I was looking for any place with a public bathroom that was open, and I was running out of options. Then I noticed that the vestibule door to city hall was unlocked, so I went in. Behind a plexiglas barrier was the city clerk's desk, with only a small opening to pass utility payments through. So, as one does, I unzipped and started peeing through the opening ... then looked up and noticed that my performance was being recorded by a video camera.

Obviously, when I woke up from that dream, I immediately had to go to the bathroom again.

They say that nightmares are supposed to teach you how to deal with a crisis, and good dreams have something to do with writing your previous day's experiences into long-term memory. But I don't know what these kinds of dreams are trying to teach me, unless it's "always have a ride home after having too many at the downtown bar" and "be careful how you handle newborns who can talk like a grown-up."